Govt looks to choke LWE funding; 1-yr plan in focus

Shah says fight against Maoists needs to be accelerated, decisive.
CMs Naveen Patnaik, Uddhav Thackeray, K Chandrashekar Rao and Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the LWE meeting on Sunday | Pti
CMs Naveen Patnaik, Uddhav Thackeray, K Chandrashekar Rao and Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the LWE meeting on Sunday | Pti

NEW DELHI:  Union home minister Amit Shah urged the chief ministers of Naxal-affected states to give priority to the menace for next one year so that a permanent solution could be evolved.  It is very important to neutralize the sources of income of the Left Wing Extremists, Shah said at a review meeting which was attened by chief ministers Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), K Chandrashekar Rao (Telangana), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (MP), Uddhav Thackeray (Maharashtra) and Hemant 
Soren (Jharkhand).

Shah urged these states that the Chief Secretaries should hold a review meeting with the DGPs and officers of central agencies at least every three months to deal with LWE.  If a regular review is done at the level of Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and DGP, he said, then the problems of coordination at the lower level will automatically get resolved.

The fight against the problem, which has claimed the lives of more than 16,000 civilians in the last 40 years, has now reached its end, he said, adding that it needs to be accelerated and made decisive.
“We all know that unless we get rid of the problem of Left Wing Extremism completely, the full development of the country and the states affected by it is not possible,” Shah was quoted as saying in a government statement.

The home minister said it was very important to neutralise the sources of LWE income. For this, he advised, the agencies of both central and state governments to stymie it by making a system together. 
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik urged the Centre to conduct a study on how many children from Naxal-hit regions succeed in national-level examinations like NEET and JEE. 

Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren  claimed that presence of hardcore extremists was limited to only four regions in his state. He also raised issues such as the Centre’s contribution to the development of tribal areas and requested extension of the Special Central Assistance fund for LWE districts.

Violence down
Incidents of LWE violence are down by 70%  from an all-time high of 2,258 in 2009 to 665 in 2020. Deaths are down by 82% from 1,005 in 2010 to 183 in 2020.

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